This just in from Steve Sjuggerud’s Daily Wealthnewsletter. (Highly recommended.)

You Can Escape This MarketBy Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

You have to make some major changes in your life, right now.

Fortunately, making those changes doesn’t have to hurt…

My friend Grant Pecoff made big changes in his life. He and his wife Layne used to live in San Diego. They had a nice three-bedroom house, three cars, and every modern convenience. But he got tired of trying to keep up.

He realized he didn’t need all that stuff.

Today, the Pecoffs have a one-bedroom house. And they share one car. But their quality of life is outstanding… and they’re much happier. They’re living on the water, on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. My wife and I visited them over the weekend.

“A lot of people don’t realize that you can choose your life,” Grant told me.

“We realized that we had lost our priorities along the way. So we got out of San Diego to reconnect with what’s important to us. It’s a lot less stressful here in the Bahamas, and I get lot more work done.”

Grant is an artist. He lives in the Bahamas, but he still has his gallery in San Diego. Other galleries feature his art as well, like the Wyland Gallery in Key West (where I first saw his work).

While life as an artist might sound glamorous, it’s stressful. Just think about it… Mortgage payments and car payments are fixed. But art sales vary… Your income goes up and down. So Grant did the smart thing. He got rid of his old fixed payments.

Grant told me taking that initial leap and moving was huge. “That initial leap gave us the confidence to take more steps – to make more choices. When you think about it, the definition of ‘leap’ is that there is some moment where both feet are off the ground.”

He told me, “Here, you can choose to never put shoes on all day… or to shower outside naked… or to walk for hours on the beach. It’s up to you. We don’t have fancy restaurants here or a hundred channels on TV. But they’re not important to us.”

The Pecoffs’ new lifestyle is not for everyone… The house sits on a point, with water on two sides. But when they bought it, it had no electricity or running water. Even now, if you want a hot shower, you have to wait until the afternoon, when the sun has heated the water pipes on the roof. There’s no air conditioning… You have to rely on the sea breezes. When it gets too hot, you take a dip in the ocean.

A Grant Pecoff original. To read his story and see more of his work, visit www.pecoff.com.

Grant’s life is different than it was in San Diego. He made the leap. He made wholesale changes. He got rid of the anxiety. He got rid of the need to keep up with the neighbors.

If you’re stressing right now about money, you ought to consider making some changes. With Grant Pecoff as an example, the changes you make don’t necessarily have to hurt as bad as you might think.

Grant escaped this market. He went down from three bedrooms to one… and from three cars to one. If you want to remove the anxiety, if you want to improve your quality of life, consider following Grant’s lead. [more]

Yogananda: “Mahatmaji,” I said as I squatted beside him on the uncushioned mat, “please tell me your definition of ahimsa.”

Gandhi: “The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed.”

Yogananda: “Beautiful ideal! But the world will always ask: May one not kill a cobra to protect a child, or one’s self?”

Gandhi: “I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows: fearlessness, and non-killing. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by vibrations of love. I cannot possibly lower my standards to suit my circumstances.”

With his amazing candor, Gandhi added, “I must confess that I could not carry on this conversation were I faced by a cobra!”

And yet, Yogananda used to tell a story about a cobra, it went something like this:

Once there was a cobra near a village that used to bite the women as they walked to the river to do their wash.

One day a saint walked by and the snake came out to bite him but the saint warned him of the negative consequences of his karma and he should stop biting people. The snake thought about it and repented of his evil ways.

Some time later the saint walked down the same path again and saw the snake all beat him and looking miserable and the saint asked him what was wrong. The Snake said since he repented the women and children now throw sticks and stones at him.

For my friends/family: site updates may run a little slow for the next week as I have a big mess on my hands remodeling my sound room. I’m using the dead space over the stairwell leading up to it to create a built-in equipment rack. Also installing a new 125″ electric projection screen that’ll drop down over the windows when in use, automatically darkening the room for viewing.

Having a big hole in the wall leading down to the kitchen is good motivation to push the project thru to completion ASAP. Well, that and having all my hi-fi gear shoved into the “computer rm” and unusable.